Sabrina Elba and Ashley Thomas lead East London rom-com Not Like Us
Deadline reports that Ramla Ali and Richard A. Moore have wrapped their debut feature, an independently financed rom-com aiming for 2027.
By Bianca Rossi · Entertainment Editor
2 min read
Sabrina Elba and Ashley Thomas are fronting a new East London romantic comedy with a family-sized headache at its center.
Deadline reports that writer-director duo Ramla Ali and Richard A. Moore have finished production on Not Like Us, their debut feature. The film was shot in East London and is now being lined up for a 2027 launch, according to the report.
Elba plays Amina Hassan, a Somali single mother in her 40s who works as a pharmacist. Deadline reports that Amina has carefully built her own business, reputation and tightly ordered life, only for romance to complicate the whole setup.
Thomas plays Edmund Clarke, a Jamaican man whose arrival pushes Amina into conflict with family and cultural expectations, according to the film’s synopsis reported by Deadline.
A romance with aunties on patrol
The story also brings in three community aunties, Hawa, Safia and Maryam, who decide Amina needs a husband, Deadline reports. Their matchmaking mission comes despite the film’s own description that their marriages are not exactly problem-free.
Deadline reports that the film is framed as a story about love, desire and choosing happiness, told from inside the community it portrays. Sofia Oxenham is also in the cast.
Ali and Moore wrote and directed the film together. Their connection to the material is personal: Deadline reports that the pair married in 2016, and that Moore, a white British man, converted to Islam.
Ali was born in Mogadishu, Somalia, and grew up in East London, according to Deadline. She is also a former Olympic boxer, and her life is the subject of the upcoming feature biopic In The Shadows, which Deadline reports is due in UK cinemas in October.
An indie route for the debut
Not Like Us was independently financed, Deadline reports. Ali and Moore described running into problems with the traditional British funding system before taking that route, according to the outlet.
The producing team includes Sunita Mirchandani Hyams and Luke Hyams of Pangaea Group, Andrew Conrad and Gina Carter of 22 Summers, and Ali and Moore, Deadline reports. Richard Fearn of Affine Films is executive producer.
The film marks a new screen chapter for Ali, whose public profile has stretched from boxing to filmmaking. For Moore, it is also a first feature as co-writer and co-director, Deadline reports.
No distributor or exact release date has been announced in Deadline’s report. The production team is targeting a 2027 launch.
This story draws on original reporting from Deadline.